Sunday, February 18, 2007
I lay here on my couch exhausted from the goings on of yesterday. Skype is equally exhausted and is passed out in a little ball next to me. He’s hiccuping in the cutest possible way - there really is very little on this earth as a sleeping dog that’s convulsing uncontrollably in the throes of hiccups.
Someone recently commented to me that my blog was very beige. They didn’t mean the color scheme, but more the fact that my life is rather boring. I actually appreciated that more than the person intended: I like the boring quiet life! Luckily I still do have the occasional splash of color in my life as yesterday exhibited:
The afternoon movie showing was quite exciting! I had 8 people show up for drinks, movies, and other sorts of orgastic excess. Skype of course had a blast - it’s almost more than he can bear to have that many drunk people show up and play with him. For an idea of the happenings check out the (dark and long) Quicktime timelapse I made.
Take that beige! Now back to our regularly scheduled beige.
Oh yeah - and I’ve developed a love affair with Tilda Swinton! She’s just so good at being bad!
Saturday, February 17, 2007
It’s been a while since I’ve posted - after updating the site design to the blog on Tuesday everything became rather busy. Wednesday night was the most romantic possible of valentines: I did usability testing for my friend Troy’s upcoming Pirates MMO, and then went home to drink wine and cuddle with Skype.
Pirates of the Burning Sea actually looks like it could be quite a fun game. I most likely won’t get sucked in (I’m not the MMO kind of guy) but I mean who can argue with Pirates? The game still needs a little UI polish (they are not even in beta yet), but it’s got a solid base for a good combat system and what looks to be a giant world to run (sail?) around in.
Thursday continued my Pirates theme with a showing of Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man’s Chest with Ken at Le Cinema Sparks. I really do have to admit that the special effects are simply amazing - regardless of the sheer ridiculousness of the rest of the movie. ILM used a new technology called iMoCap (Image Based Motion Capture) which allowed actors playing the pirates to be replaced in near realtime with CG characters using motion capture technology. This is way cool and an indicator that within a few years actors as we know them will likely be replaced with the infinite tweak-ability of computer generated actors.
Thursday also brought the first day that my jaw really felt better. The antibiotics are working a number on the infection and my bowels at the same time. I’m certainly glad they are working and I won’t have to have surgery, but the constant search for more bathrooms is starting to get old. Oh well - it could be worse: my jaw could have swelled up more and left me horribly disfigured for the foreseeable future. In other news my pills are more than half gone:
Friday brought laundry, cleaning, and way too much laziness. I spent the entire evening getting ready for the weekend. Below is a shot of my pants drying in the bathroom. I had hung them up to dry and was just getting ready to go to bed when I noticed the shot and had to go get my gear together really quick so I could shoot it. I then got sucked into Photoshop playing with various treatments until I finall came up with the below. GO PANTS!
Now that it’s saturday I’m wearing slightly damp pants, and finishing my preparations. I’m actually rather proud of myself for waking up early enough today that I could take Skype to the dog park and still have time to finish cleaning. He had a blast running around this morning (too fast to shoot sometimes) and now is being cooperatively lazy - hopefully that will continue through the evening with my company.
In a few hours a ton of my friends are showing up for movies. I finished cleaning this morning and went to the liquor store to pick up enough booze to sedate an entire frathouse. I forgot mixers but after making a few calls I think that problem should be taken care of by my friends when they show up.
“Shot of pills” by sparktography
“Skype with ball” by sparktography
“Jeans” by sparktography
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Feeling sick has me unmotivated to do much more than sitting in front of my computer, so sit in front of my computer I did tonight. I took the opportunity to install a new version of the veryplaintext theme (Thanks Scott!) onto the site and hack with it a bit. The new version is a bit cleaner, has more in the sidebar, and most importantly handles different resolutions much better.
The images now scale when someone has a small browser window, and the whole site has a minimum and maximum width to improve rendering. I also did some small tweaks to the typography that help improve the readability of the site as a whole. If you like or don’t like the new theme tweaks, or if it somehow breaks in your browser add a comment to this post to let me know.
Finally I have another shot of my antibiotics to add to the site. I’m not feeling well yet so the idea of leaving the house to go shooting is not very appealing. I really like how this one came out - it was a macro experiment with the Lensbaby 3G macro lens.
“Biotic lensbaby” by sparktography
Monday, February 12, 2007
My jaw infection is getting worse - I saw my dentist this morning and he immediately referred me to an oral surgeon who put me on massive antibiotics (three day supply above) and told me that if they didn’t make the swelling go away - and damn quick - that surgery to relive the pressure would be necessary.
I’m really hoping that the antibiotics kick in quickly - I really don’t relish the thought of having my jaw cut open so that pus can erupt like a volcano of death. The timing couldn’t be worse either - with my taxes due soon I really can’t afford either emergency surgery nor missing the time at work.
Ewww - go antibiotics!
“Biotic” by sparktography
Saturday, February 10, 2007
(Best viewed large)
Another creation from compositing various shots together. I’m not quite as happy with this one as I was with Future City, but I’m really starting to like this style. This one is much more of a study in lines, angles, and textures rather than the curves and lights of Future City. All of these shots were taken from various locations at Westlake Center in downtown Seattle and composited in Photoshop with some surprisingly complex masks.
Next time I go out to do a photoshoot for a composition like this I want to put some more planning into it. I also want to bring a protractor and plan out some of the angles to make blending things together easier. I also want to try to plan together some textures better to make things layer together in a more compelling way.
Being sick is not all bad - it does give me hours and hours to spend in photoshop tweaking something like this.
“Cityscape” by sparktography
Saturday, February 10, 2007
It’s been a long crazy week in the life of Sparky. Skype ate my Wiimote, I had another root canal, and Friday was just one big long stressful day (which I can’t talk about quite yet). To top it all off I think I’m starting to get sick. My only hope is that if I relax all weekend I can be all caught back up to tackle some major hurdles in my way at work next week.
We are currently in the last mile of shipping a complex and nightmarish version of the product I’m working on. Luckily I’m pretty sure it will make it into production just fine, but it’s been a very bumpy and stressful road to this point. To make matters worse I’m already ramping up version two of the product and getting specs written - although it seems that version two is shaping up to be even more of a headache with all the moving parts we are going to need to coordinate and integrate. Yay for providing value to Microsoft’s volume licensing customers!
One good thing about this week was I did finally see Jason, Tres, and Jake on Thursday. They have been rather hermit like of late working on their respective houses, husbands, and lightboxes. Hopefully they will continue to come out of their shells occasionally and I’ll get to see more of them.
“The horror” by Jason
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
(Best viewed large)
The result of a few hours in Photoshop tonight playing with a number of different shots I took. I focused on trying to blend and remix them into something entirely new. At this point it’s much more of a creation than a photograph. This is actually the result of 7 separate photos with multiple parts per photo taken and remixed from each. I’m coming to love grungy brushes for work like this - so much control and being able to keep various layers of grunge for an image and tweak and blend it into the final image is very rewarding. Some shots taken with a 28-135mm IS lens, and some taken with a Lensbaby 3G.
I find it really interesting that a photo shoot spanning a week and involving 4 separate treks to the overpass could culminate in a single image like this.
“Future city” by sparktography
